The clouds had cleared from the summit shortly before we headed up. Although there was a stream running down the trail in some places, we thoroughly enjoyed the somewhat steep rock pitches before the treeline breaks. Great views of Marcy, Colden, Wallface, and Iroquois, among others, from the top. I stared at the Trap Dike and adjacent slide on Colden for a long time and I'm really looking forward to doing that route sometime soon.

He was a bit overwhelmed at some of the steeper parts of the trail, but he was a good hiker, and was really amazed at the beauty of the view from the summit. We spent over an hour on top, and he did a lot of photography of the surrounding peaks. At the Wright junction where we stopped for a snack on the way up, we were entertained by a pair of fisher, who ran around and peered at us from a distance of only 10 feet.Chris wants to climb more of the"46". I think I created another potential 46er.

My first foray into more serious winter hiking, and one of the most challenging things I've ever done. I believe we were the only ones to do Algonquin that day, as we were hiking through fresh powder the whole way once we broke off the trail from the Loj.

We were fine in boots until we reached the tree line. At that point we downed some of our buddy Mike's trusty hot green tea, threw on our extra layers, and put on our snowshoes for the final (and most difficult) ascent. The snowshoes worked fairly well, but in spots crampons (or shoes with bigger "teeth" would've) would've been much more effective. There were several times where there wasn't much for the snowshoe teeth to grab onto, and I slid down several feet on my stomach. This was fun at first, but after the third or forth time it was just exhausting me.

We didn't spend much time at the top, as our eyelashes were literally frozen (see ChrisPierz's entry below). If you're going to do a winter hike, people aren't joking when they say make sure you're well prepared. Layering is important, as you'll go from hot and sweaty to colder than you've ever been in the span of 5 minutes. Have fun!

Climbed this one with an out of shape cigarette smoker who passed out at the top. He was so beat coming down the other side (we were carrying frame packs) that we had to bivvy on the one flat spot in the trail. Otherwise a nice experience.

Actually, this was to be a trip to Iroquois. At the jct. to Wright, we were forced to don our crampons, as the trail turned to a gigantic ice sheet.The climbing wasn't bad, but the winds at the summit actually blew two of our party off their feet. After a quick conference. we decided to save Iroquois for a less blustery day. We later found out that the winds at the summit that day were in excess of 50 mph. Still a good trip!!!

Three of us hiked with just boots most of the way and near the top around 4,000ft we used snowshoes. There was around 5-6 inches on the ground. It took us 4.5 hours to get up and two hours down. We did not reach the true summit and were 200ft short because of the wind and cold. We guessed it was -40 at our summit. Once we got down we found out that they closed Whiteface because of the cold.

Camped for several days at Lake Colden. We hiked up the pretty rugged trail to the summit of Algonquin, then missed the the use trail leading to Iriqouis on the way back. So we hiked back up a few hundred feet and hit Iroquis too. I grew up in northern New York, and wherever I go, the Adirondacks will always be "home."